Free Republic

Russia plans to establish a military base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast to serve as a logistics center for the Russian navy, according to a draft agreement between Moscow and Khartoum signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and released publicly Nov. 11. The agreement states that Sudan will provide a land plot for the Russian base free of charge for a period of 25 years. It will automatically renew for subsequent 10-year periods. To terminate the deal, one of the parties must notify the other party of its intention at least one year before the expiration of the next...

President Trump announced Tuesday that Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen had agreed to stop attacking American vessels in the Red Sea and that his administration will cease strikes on them in response. “The Houthis have announced that … they don’t want to fight anymore,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word [when] they say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s...

An F/A-18E fighter jet rolled off the side an aircraft carrier and sank to the bottom of the Red Sea, the Navy announced on Monday. There was one enlisted crew member aboard the jet and a second enlisted crew member inside the tractor when the incident occurred. Both personnel were able to jump out in time with only one person sustaining a minor injury, according to officials. In the extraordinary mishap, the $70 million jet was being towed out of the hanger bay of the USS Harry S. Truman when the crew lost control. "The F/A-18E was actively under tow...

A second member of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's inner circle has been placed on leave after an investigation into leaks of potentially sensitive information. Darin Selnick, the Defense Department's deputy chief of staff, was suspended from duty and escorted out of the building. This came on the heels of another Hegseth aide, Dan Caldwell, being escorted out of the Pentagon; see Hegseth Advisor Who Was Included in Leaked Signal Text Chain Escorted From Pentagon, Placed on Leave – RedState.Selnick is a retired Air Force officer and, like Caldwell, was part of a group Hegseth brought with him from Concerned...

It's still not known what caused the Sindbad submarine to sink. One report, from the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, suggested the vessel may have hit a reef at a depth of around 20 metres. A woman now tells Russian outlet Ren TV, in a phone interview, that water flowed into hatches as passengers boarded the submarine. Ekaterina says as they took their reserved seats, water started "pouring in" as two hatches were open. She says it was as if the submarine had fallen off "whatever it was holding on to". Earlier, we learned that tourists are taken out...

At least six people are believed to be dead and another nine injured — six critically — after a tourist submarine sank off of Egypt’s Red Sea coast Thursday. Twenty-nine of the roughly 40 passengers onboard were rescued, with those injured taken to local hospitals according to the BBC. The submarine, “The Sinbad,” foundered close to the harbor in the city of Hurghada, a popular tourist destination on the Red Sea known for its beaches. The vessel can descend 82 feet deep in the sea and offers stunning views of the coral reefs and marine life, according to the website...

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has said the inadvertent leak of classified military plans by senior US officials means that allied nations must increasingly “look out for ourselves” as trust frays with a once-close ally. Speaking a day after it was revealed that a journalist was accidentally included in a group chat discussing airstrikes against Yemeni rebels, Carney said the intelligence blunder was a “serious, serious issue and all lessons must be taken”. He said it would be critical to see “how people react to those mistakes and how they tighten them up”.

Grok: Expressed in billions of dollars list the five countries and five corporations that will benefit most from the U.S. military activity to eliminate shipping disruptions caused by the Houthi near the Red Sea. China is 1st. 🇺🇸 isn’t in the top 5... ...

BEHIND THE LINES: The US administration appears to fail to notice the broader alliance taking shape behind these forces, and the interconnectedness of the current assault on the West. The statement by US President Donald Trump that Iran would be held responsible for continued attacks by the Yemeni Houthi movement on shipping in the Red Sea sharply raises the temperature in the ongoing escalation between US forces and the Yemeni Shi’ite Islamist movement in that area. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership...

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious “accidents” in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who “sleep with rockets and amass large stockpiles of weapons are in a very unsafe place.” With the Party of God’s overland supply route through Syria choked off by the 22-month-long uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Israel virtually in total control of the maritime route, Hezbollah’s stockpile is being systematically degraded.Yet the arsenal of Iran’s other regional proxy force, Hamas,...

The U.S. military conducted wide-ranging air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, President Trump said. Why it matters: It was the biggest wave of U.S. strikes in Yemen since Trump assumed office. A U.S. official said Saturday's strikes were not a one-off but the start of a series of "relentless" U.S. strikes against the Houthis that are expected to last for days or maybe even weeks. Driving the news: According to local reports in Yemen, numerous explosions took place in Sana'a around 1:30pm ET. Trump said the strikes were aimed at "terrorists' bases, leaders, and missile defenses." Behind...

The strikes targeted facilities in parts of Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed group. U.S. B-2 bombers and other aircraft struck five underground Houthi weapons storage locations in parts of Yemen that the Iranian-backed rebel group controls, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday. The facilities, which officials said were hardened, housed "various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region," Austin said. Houthi rebels have attacked civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The group was suspected in an attack in August. The strikes were the first...

The Houthi rebels in Yemen announced on Tuesday evening that they will attack any ship that violates the group's ban on Israeli vessels passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, effective immediately. The "ban on the passage of all Israeli ships" will continue "until the crossings to the Gaza Strip are reopened and aid, food, and medicine are allowed in," said the Houthis’ military spokesperson, Yahya Saree. Earlier on Tuesday evening, Al-Arabiya reported that the United States attacked Houthi radar facilities and weapons storage sites in the port of Al-Hudaydah in...

La Brújula Verde reports that the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities completed a two-year excavation and preservation project of an ancient mining camp at Jabal Sukari near the Red Sea. Archaeologists were under pressure to complete the project as the site is currently endangered by modern mining activities. The Egyptian team uncovered a vast gold processing complex that dates back 3,000 years, as well as a settlement inhabited by those who worked at the mine. The mining facility included specialized factories for extracting the gold from quartz veins, which has provided new information about ancient methods of obtaining and...

The administration readied the order Wednesday afternoon, and President Donald Trump signed it just past 5 p.m. The order fully restores tough American sanctions on the Yemen-based terror group that the Biden administration lifted in 2021. Trump added the Houthis to America’s FTO list in the waning days of his first administration, but the Biden White House reversed the move amid efforts to ease diplomatic tensions with Iran. The Biden administration did redesignate the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist outfit last January, when the Houthis launched a wave of attacks on global shipping vessels. While that designation does...

Israel responded today to repeated attacks from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, pounding multiple sites in Yemen with airstrikes, including Sanaa International Airport. Will these latest strikes be enough to deter the Houthis or is the situation bound to escalate? And are Israel’s long1range missions in Yemen a dry run for a future attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons sites? Watch now!

Israeli Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Thursday, after the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck multiple targets across Yemen, the fourth Israeli counterattack against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the most ambitious thus far. As Breitbart News reported earlier Thursday, Israel hit Yemen’s international airport in the capital city of Sana’a, and port facilities in Hodeida, after several days in which the Houthis fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israeli cities.

Israel will begin targeting leaders of Yemen’s Houthi rebel group, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday, vowing that Israel will not allow missile and drone fire on Israel to continue unchecked. Firing at Houthi leaders would seem to mark an escalation by Israel, which has so far targeted port infrastructure and military sites in a handful of sorties in response to repeated launches of drones and ballistic missiles from Yemen. A missile fired early Tuesday was shot down, but sirens in the Tel Aviv area caused widespread panic and a rush to shelter left one woman seriously injured. It was...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two U.S. Navy pilots were shot down Sunday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the U.S military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of America targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one suffering minor injuries. But the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become, with ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite U.S. and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The U.S. military had conducted airstrikes targeting...

The good news is that the pilots are safe. There were no fatalities, but it could have been a tragic accident. We have confirmed reports of a friendly fire incident occurring in the Red Sea, where an F-18 fighter jet was blasted out of the sky. American forces have been conducting airstrikes in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The fighter jet was accidentally shot down by a cruise missile cruiser, which is under investigation. Both pilots were able to eject from the aircraft and rescued shortly thereafter (via USNI News)